Live performance continues to be created every time it is performed. This book explores the dynamic relationship between creative process, presentation and spectator response to provide students and scholars with new insights on performance - from poetry to pantomime.

These essays make parallels between areas of performance that are rarely, if ever, compared. They present the basis for an overall theory of how 'conception', 'development', 'presentation' and 'reception' are fused together to make up the overall 'performance'. This study investigates the relationship between the process of creating performance and spectator response, and how this exchange is embedded into the product itself.

The authors draw on theoretical approaches from a range of sources and examine the work of contemporary dramatists, choreographers, poets and performers including:

• Sarah Kane
• Iain Baxter
• Yolande Snaith
• Slobodan Snajder
• Phylis Nagy
• Steve Benson
• David Fielding
• David Antin
• Bette Midler
• Karen Malpede
• Stephen Daldry
• Mai Lanfang

Its construction of a new, wide-ranging approach to performance research makes this book a valuable resource for the student as well as the broader academic community. It has application both as a textbook and for supplementary reading on theatre and performance based courses.